


the art of bullshit

by Viktory



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: + one-sided spabel, F/M, M/M, THERES A LOT OF UNREQUITED ATTRACTIONS HERE IM SORRY, also that spamano is p much onesided too sry.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viktory/pseuds/Viktory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Carlos wants is to be left alone by his embarrassing friends and smoke his way through Latin American Studies in peace.</p><p>[more or less a tomato gang centric college au, with cameos by whoever feels like it.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. UNO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LOVINO MY MAN, LET'S START THIS OFF WITH A BANG!

LOVINO

Second day of college, Lovino was beginning to suspect that he was in over his head.

The classes themselves were proving to be the easiest parts of this whole thing so far. It was the  _people_  he had trouble with.

His first class was Fundamentals of Physics at 9:30, taught by a Northern European woman in whose voice there still lingered a faint Scandinavian accent. Her name was Professor Lindholm; she was young for a professor, no more than thirty, Lovino thought, and way too hot to be teaching science.

It was unfortunate, then, that they got off to such a bad start. He had to admit it was largely his fault: first for arriving thirty minutes late and interrupting her in the middle of a powerpoint presentation, and then receiving a phone call that sent  _Laura non c'è_  blasting through the lecture hall (so what that song was almost as old as he was, it was fucking catchy and it did its job as a ringtone, alright?! A-and the fact that Nek had a sexy singing voice was not relevant. At all!). It was also at this point that Lovino found out, much to his dismay, that yeah, lecture halls  _did_ , in fact, have amazing acoustics.

If he were a more passive man, one who could fade into the background easily, the sort of person whose name professors would have to ask over and over again, he might've gotten through this class okay. But Lovino had never been great at subtlety; he had spent fourteen years of his life being told by people that he was too loud, too disruptive, and, in general, had a great knack for doing everything  _too much_.  _Cazzi._  Expressionism was dead.

Also, Lindholm was looking kind of pissed. Shit.

A hand brushed up to fix his hair — a useless gesture: it was already perfect, he made sure of that every morning — and he fixed the professor with what he hoped was a contrite smile. It was way too early in the semester to get into trouble, goddamnit!

"Mister Vargas," she began (his name pronounced in her stilted Swedish accent with the emphases all wrong was sexy beyond words, but that was beside the point — how the hell did she know his name?!), "if you are going to interrupt my teaching with pop songs, at least do it with one that is from this century." And that was it. She walked back to the chalkboard.

Lovino was about ready to die.

* * *

After that bizarre encounter, there was an hour-long breather until his next class. He went outside and bought a vending machine coffee, the watered-down shit that tasted like sour milk, even though he always made sure not to order decaf. It was a sunny day, so Lovino opted to stay outdoors; this part of campus was somewhat more secluded from the main grounds. He picked a spot to rest on one of the wooden benches, with a nice view of the Engineering Complex opposite and the people milling about near the entrance. Lovino lay back on the bench and sighed, mind still on the Physics class. Lindholm was inscrutable.

A brief tussling match with his shoulder bag ensued from which the Italian emerged victorious and holding his cellphone. He took a sip of the bland coffee before setting it back down and dialling the number for Herakles, his friend (could they be described as friends? It was more like they had been chained together under that weird relationship where the parents were dating and their children were thus obligated to spend time together; only doubly weird because it was Lovino's grandfather and Herakles' mother, buuut that was a story for another time).

"Hey, capo. It's Lov — the shit d'you mean I woke you up? It's ten-fucking-thirty, dumbass — whatever. Look, my physics prof — yes, the blonde one — really? You think it's dyed? I don't know, she  _is_  Swedish, she has the accent — why would she fake a Swedish accent!? Just shut up and listen, you cuntwit. She's totally onto me! Today she called me out in the middle of class  _and she knows who I am_. I've never seen her before yesterday! Isn't that freaky? Either she hates me or she wants to fu — what? NO! I don't want to sleep with her … yeah, she is pretty hot. But. — Stop that!!" He jabbed the 'end call' button, furious. The conversation, like most of the ones he had with Herakles, had gotten nowhere.

There were two text messages on his phone, three new emails, and a missed call from his brother. He dealt with the texts (one was spam, the other from a friend back in Naples who wanted to know if it was cool to go out with an old girlfriend of Lovino's now that he was out of the country — he replied in the negative just to spite the guy), and left the emails to stew in his Inbox (3 401 unread and counting). Then he hit 'Call Back' and braced himself.

Feliciano picked up after the first ring, like the clingy towel he was, and assaulted Lovino with the expected barrage of " _Ciao how are you fratellone??_  Are you settling into your room alright? What's your new roommate like? Has he arrived yet?? What do you think of your classes so far? Anyway haha, the reason I wanted to call you was because, well, it's a little funny actually, but uh, you won't believe this —"

"Get the fuck on with it!" Lovino growled.

"Yessir! See, it's my roommate, he's… well. Just a bit unsettling."

"What do you mean?"

"He was nice, I guess I can say that, but he doesn't talk much. Not sure how much English he knows. And he has this really intense stare, à la Norman Bates except he smiles less. On top of that I think he's got a cleaning detergent fetish. I'm very very creeped out Lovino!"

"Sounds like a split copy of your old boyfriend, Feli."

" _Ha ha ha_. I haven't even gotten to the worrisome part yet. He has these giant pet... things! I don't even know if pets are allowed in campus dorms. Are they? I'm scared they'll chew my face off in my sleep."

"I'd pay to see that." His voice faded, attention having become occupied by an approaching woman in a smart beige blazer, curvaceous in the most elegant sense of the word. W-was she walking towards him? Lovino sat up a little straighter and ran a hand over his hair again. "Hey listen, I gotta go."

"Lovino. You need to help me confront him about this…"

"Yeah, yeah, find me later or something alright? Can't talk now."

" _Fratello—!_ "

He hung up against his brother's protests and smiled at the woman. She reciprocated with a charming, off-centre little grin of her own. She carried a black suitcase, the kind that lawyers used, with a flag pin on the strap: Belgium or Romania, couldn't be sure in the sunlight. Her hair was a glossy shade of dishwater blonde. It fell to her shoulders in a bouncy waterfall of half-hearted curls and was kept slightly in place by a green headband that matched her eyes. _Jesus_. She had the most cat-like eyes Lovino had ever seen.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but do you know where the Life Sciences building is? My friends want to meet there, but I'm afraid I'm a little lost."

"Sorry,  _bella,_ " he said with all the earnestness he could muster, "I've just gotten lost myself... in your eyes." Damn it, Lovino! Did you just say that? Why the fuck did you just say that? Of all the generic pickup lines you could've used  _why DID YOU PICK THE CHEESIEST OF THEM ALL?!!_

She laughed, an inviting sort of laugh like warm honey water down your throat when you have a cold.  _Really cute._  "Don't you know flattery gets you nowhere?"

"Just telling it how it is, è tutto." He took her pale hand between his and stood. This girl must like him a lot, he figured, to have put up with that horrible first impression. The thought gave him courage. "Now, Life Sciences, sì? I'm sure we'll find a way there, no problem." In truth, he had no idea where or even what Life Sciences was. But! It was a chance to talk to a pretty girl for a few minutes; and a lot of things could happen in that few minutes, especially given Lovino's stellar prowess with women. He liked to think so, anyway.

They strolled through the campus grounds, past sun-daubed buildings and couples lounging on the grass, Lovino pointing out the more historic buildings and waxing poetic about their design — he  _was_  in Architecture, after all, and wanted to impress her. She was a very good listener, and she laughed at his jokes, and he was grateful for that.

Manon, for that was her name, came from the Netherlands but called Belgium her home, and she was a law student. She had taken a gap year with her brother, spent au pairing around the world, before enrolling in university.

Lovino tried return Manon's comments by telling her about himself, but he didn't know what he could say. He didn't feel like talking about his brother — what would he be able to say, besides that Feli was so much better than him at everyfuckingthing and probably more handsome too? It was always embarrassing to tell people who his grandpa was. And he had nothing to say about himself beyond the fact he was, well, Italian (no shit. As if she couldn't tell from the accent). None of the few memorable things he had done in his life had been exactly  _legal_  and he didn't want Manon to think he was a hooligan. Lovino couldn't just go with a few white lies, either; he knew that those sharp green eyes would be able to see through him in an instant.

But before he could form a meaningful response, he felt a hand press down on his shoulder. Lovino turned around to gaze into the eyes of what could only be described as a younger, blonder Wolverine, with less facial hair and a better wardrobe.

"Can I, I help you?" The stutter that slipped out was involuntary.

"Yeah." The man spoke with a gruff accent (German? Dutch?) that added to the whole European Wolverine impression he had going on. "Leave Mari alone."

"Hennie! Don't be rude. This is Lovino. I asked him to help me find a few of my friends."

"I'll take you there," said "Hennie," casting Lovino a look that held some sort of tacit threat before drawing a finger across his neck, as if the glare hadn't been obvious enough. "We can use my bike."

Manon offered an apologetic look over her shoulder. Lovino waved weakly, exhaled, and sat down with resignation in the grass. He could hear Manon's exasperated voice, now arguing in rapid Dutch with the monotonous Hennie, fading away as they walked off. This was the second jealous boyfriend to threaten Lovino with death since he'd gotten here a day ago. Two for two; not bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soon lovino will find out to his simultaneous joy and dismay that hendrik is nOT manon's boyfriend but rather her brother


	2. TWEE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing our favourite Dutchman. Hendrik van Dijk makes some pretty interesting discoveries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SAID ID POST THIS CHAPTER SoMETIME THIS WEEK, IT's AN HOUR FROM MIDNIGHT, THE PROMISE HAS BEEN KEPT  
> and let me just point out how hilarious i find it that "two" in dutch is "twee". (im sorry dutchies.)  
> please note drug use
> 
> [06/11/2016 EDIT NOTES] what the fuck. it has been four months since i published this chapter, and i only realized today that i was using different names for ned. why the fuck did nobody call me out on this.

HENDRIK

He'd finished what little homework there was to be done on the first day of classes, and now lounged on a couch wondering what to do next. His roommate Feliciano (that was his name, right? Feliciano?), who hadn't stuck around long enough for Hendrik to remember anything other than a bubbly, somewhat jumpy Italian fellow, had gone out early in the morning for classes and not yet returned. There was a note on his bedside table explaining that he was out shopping for groceries and not to expect him back until the morning. What kind of grocery shopping required an entire night to complete remained a mystery, but Hendrik figured that was normal, considering Italians.

Manon had gone off to a girls' night out with friends, and their brother Niels was still an ocean away on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, spending his honeymoon with his high school sweetheart in Dubai. (It struck Hendrik as ironic that the baby brother of the family had gotten hitched first, but then again, Niels had always been the most practical one of the three of them when it came down to it. Manon went through her partners like they were contestants on a speed-dating show. And Hendrik himself had just about given up hope of ever settling down; that would remain a distant fantasy.) He was unaccustomed to having such an empty place all to himself. Back in their high school days, when the three of them lived crammed into a single tiny townhouse in Yonkers and their mother was still around with her spontaneous and borderline hysterical mood swings bringing home one ill-advised boyfriend after the other, the house had never seemed to have a moment of peace. He'd dreamed of having a quiet home of his own, but now that it was a reality he suddenly felt that there was something missing.

He got up from the seat, searching inside his bookshelf until he found _English for Beginners, 18th edition_ and opened it up to hollowed-out pages. Inside was a box with a peeling label that read _Chinese Herbal Cough Drops_ , and a black-and-white picture of a man in spectacles smiling up at him. Methodically, he emptied the dried green contents of the little box onto the cover of the book, and was in the process of folding up a piece of rolling paper when the phone rang. With a screech, the default ringtone jarred the still apartment to life. Hendrik fumbled it out of his pocket and answered irritably, "Hullo?"

"CARRRLOS, ¿QUE PASA?!" yelled an excited voice, nearly blowing out his eardrum. That was all Hendrik managed to catch before he was flooded with a barrage of Spanish that sounded... weirdly familiar. Perhaps it was just distortion from the background music, which certainly didn't help matters. Where the hell was this guy calling from?

"You—have—the wrong number," he was finally able to shout over the other's voice with Herculean effort.

For an awkward half-second it was silent, save for the sound of screaming and badly remixed Christina Aguilera on the other end. Hendrik put the call on speakerphone and set it on the counter, and returned to scraping the weed into a neat pile in the centre of the paper. Then: "Ehh—? SORRY! THIS ISN'T CARLOS?"

"Do I sound like fucking 'Carrrlos?'" said Hendrik, the response sounding more moody than he would've liked. The blunt looked at him enticingly from the table.

The voice on the phone was quiet once more, but he could swear that the man's lips were forming into a pout. It was an expression he was used to seeing, the deploring green eyes, the chapped lips, set against bronze skin... Ohh, fuck. Fuck NO.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded brusquely, straining to stay audible above the deafening music.

"H-HUH?" Goddamnit, he could just _see_ the idiot's eyebrows furrowing themselves in confusion. "MY NAME IS ANTONIO? ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ CARRIEDO? WHO ARE YOU?"

Hendrik shut the phone in a cold sweat. He hadn't talked to Antonio in three years. He had no idea the guy was even alive.

He stared at the number again, eyes narrowing. New York area code... but Antonio couldn't be...? What was he doing in the States? Hendrik shook his head and lit the end of the blunt.

He walked to the window, the smoke billowing around him and burning his lungs, although it was by now a familiar feeling. At dusk, Manhattan cast away its daytime identity as the ugly, gasoline-choked centre of the universe and transformed into something more mysterious and perhaps even beautiful: a colourful blur of lights and sound that stretched on across the river, to Brooklyn and Queens and the deeper recesses of Long Island. He watched the sun disappear behind the buildings of downtown while he finished smoking, admired its melting rays the way he would admire a van Gogh paintstroke or the fishnet stockings of a stripper in Berlin. Then he thought again of Antonio: he and the sun, they were very similar when it came down to it, they were the two sunniest goddamn things in the solar system, and they both caused cancer. It was funny, Hendrik mused to himself, that as soon as he started to think of one thing everything else would lead him back to it. A day ago, the sun had been the sun; then Antonio, whom he had not heard from since high school, had reappeared in his life (if only for a few brief and disorienting snatches of conversation), and now the sun was Antonio or Antonio was the sun or, well, it didn't matter and he didn't care and thinking about Antonio gave him a headache.

It was really starting to kick in now. He fell onto his bed with a barely audible sigh, letting the old feeling of detached euphoria run its course through his veins.

The hours passed. It was nearing eleven, and his roommate still hadn't showed up. Maybe he was at some nightclub, which wouldn't have been so surprising, considering it was New York, but he hadn't really thought that Feliciano was the type to frequent those places. The thought had barely passed through his mind when the door opened with a BANG. Hendrik looked up with a delayed start, feeling sluggish. He squinted in the direction of the noise. In the doorway stood two short, slender men who could've been twins, dressed in identically grey, identically crisp form-fitted suits.

Now, he knew it was bad, but the first thing that jumped into his mind was _Jesus Christ, my roommate is wanted by the Italian Mafia._ Then the shorter of the two said, "Holy fuck!" and raced away before Hendrik could so much as make a sound.

"H-hey! _Lovi_!" The taller man, with a exclamation of dismay, followed his comrade, and soon both had disappeared from sight as quickly as they had appeared. Hendrik leaned back against the bed, wondering what the hell was happening and if the two of them would come back and explain it all to him.

Soon, the footsteps were returning from around the corner. "...He's nine feet tall, for one," came a thickly-accented voice.

"Lovino, he isn't going to _attack_ us!" That was the sound of his roommate. "I mean I'll admit that the first time I saw him and realized I had to share a room with this guy I thought I was dead for real. But since then, I've given it some thought, you know, logically, and I figure that if he was good enough to get accepted to uni, there can't be any _serious_ problems with him, can there? I-I mean, he hasn't done anything _seriously_ weird yet. Just act normal!!"

"Alright, then shut up and let me do the talking. You couldn't act normal if three weeks' worth of lasagna was on the line." A head reappeared in the doorway following the words.

"What is this?" Hendrik demanded to know, still feeling rather dazed from either the marijuana or the revelation that his roommate had a (slightly shorter) clone. The two of them stepped forward, albeit with some hesitation and a lot of meaningful glances, until they were a few paces to the bed from which Hendrik was getting up.

Again, Feliciano and the clone looked at each other. Then the clone took a breath. "See, my brother here is scared of you so we've decided to switch rooms. A-as long as you're fine with it."

"Why are you dressed like you're at a funeral?" Hendrik asked.

"Fratello thought it, I mean we, would look more professional," Feliciano explained. "A-and please, Hendrik, don't take it personally!! I'm not _scared_ of you, not really, it's just...haha, you know, I think you and Lovi—Lovino are just a better match. You're a great roommate, I'm _sure_ —"

Hendrik closed his eyes, taking his time to process this information. What were they saying? What about rabbits? He heard his name. It felt as if his head had turned into Jell-O, and Feliciano's words were moving desperately through his skull, trying to reach the brain, but it just wasn't working... He opened his eyes again and studied the two men's faces. Close up, the two of them no longer looked very similar at all, though it was easy to see that they were brothers. But more importantly, the shorter one, this Lovino, he was… Hendrik's eyes narrowed. "I know you."

"You do??" Feliciano said, the last word jumping an octave as he turned to his brother and gave him a look.

The other man gave him an uneasy smile. He was rapidly turning a sickly sallow colour as recognition dawned on his face.

"You're that cunt who's been getting friendly with my sister…!"


	3. TRES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos meets the gang, or rather most of the gang. Featuring Erzsébet and Arthur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all dialogue mistakes belong to the characters, not to me! :-)  
> also i've just realized that carlos doesn't pull out a cigar, not even once, in this chapter, so we should all give him a hand.

CARLOS

"Can you believe we're in college, Carlos? I even got up extra early today and made banana bread to celebrate!"

"Who did you have to kill to get the spot? And, you know, it's eleven o'clock." Carlos took the bread anyway. His cousin was a good cook.

They wandered around the courtyard without any particular aim, waiting for the start of the noon-hour orientation tour that Antonio had signed the two of them up for. Believe it or not, Carlos was actually finding himself enjoying this peaceful little walk with his cousin. Ever since they'd arrived in the city, half a month ago, they'd been doing nothing but going to bars, nightclubs and all sorts of other places that they'd had to get fake IDs for. He liked parties as much as the next person, don't get him wrong, and they were, after all, in New York; but he also wished there were more days like these where everything was lazy and calm and he didn't have to end the night with dragging his passed-out cousin onto the subway or getting groped by a faceless dancer in the crowded nightclub.

Cousin Toni was a Spaniard, one of the lean, good-looking ones you saw in movies who went to the beach a lot and liked to set things on fire. To say that Carlos was surprised his cousin had made it this far was an understatement: he knew Antonio was more or less a good person (and smart enough to get into college, sure, if a little reluctant to have anything to do with being forced to sit still for more than an hour, or waking up before ten in the morning), but he'd always assumed that the man would get himself arrested or maybe killed before he'd ever get the chance to try.

As they walked, however, the Cuban was beginning to see signs that he may have reason now to be more optimistic. Maybe his cousin had managed to clean up his act in the five years between now and the last time they'd seen each other face to face, although he found that hard to believe; Antonio preferred being buried alive to making any great acts of self-improvement. Then again, how well did he know the man anyway? It had been a decade since he had met Antonio for the first time, but even now Carlos had trouble sifting out the genuine parts of his personality from where it lay buried between all his histrionics and unpredictable behaviour. If he really had changed for the better, Carlos was glad for him. Maybe he'd finally stop dragging everyone around him into his problems.

"My chemistry professor is a good man, Carlos. He said to me, I get my GPA high enough, I can change my major to chemistry for next year!"

"Y'think you can do it? It's the first day of school. Maintaining your GPA ain't as easy a breeze as you'd expect." Carlos had to suppress a smile at Antonio's enthusiasm. By no means was he himself quite so optimistic about the next four years, but when Antonio was well and truly excited about something, his energy was infectious. Carlos decided that it was just as Antonio had said. With every other step they took, it would hit him that not only were he and his cousin _actually attending college_ like fucking respectable people, but nobody seemed to question it at all... nobody saw anything out of the ordinary. Maybe the two of them were actually capable of fitting in here. Jesús and María!

He looked at his cousin, but of course he had not shared Carlos' flash of realization. Antonio's sense of wonder came from the fact that they were strolling through a pretty campus, with lots of sunlight and trees and fancy old buildings.

* * *

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the university. I'm Arthur Kirkland, an international student, and I've just started my third year here at this fine institution." The young man addressing them was tall, British, and so pale that Carlos was having a hard time looking directly at him. He wore a sharply-tailoured suit that made him look slimmer than he already was and emphasized the extreme angularity of his figure. Carlos and Toni were among a group of at least thirty other undergraduates, all of whom, like Arthur, looked insanely rich. "I'm pursuing a double major in Communication Studies and English, with a focus on British literature, so if you have an—"

In a sudden move that startled him, Antonio clutched Carlos' arm with both hands. "Qué mierda es eso!?"

Carlos supposed that this question was meant to have been delivered in a whisper, but in his experience, Spaniards had no clue what whispering actually meant. The silence that followed Antonio's remark was full of befuddlement, not least of which was Carlos' own.

Arthur Kirkland stopped mid-sentence and blinked. He inclined his head to look in the direction of the voice, at the same time reaching for his hair with his hand, as if he instinctively knew there was something on his face that shouldn't have been there, and it was only then that Carlos discovered what had prompted his cousin's outburst.

"Why do you have like five eyebrows?" It was out of his mouth before he could remember to be self-conscious. He knew Arthur wouldn't consider it terribly polite that he was staring, but those eyebrows had transfixed him as if they had hypnotic powers; the harder he looked, the more puzzling they became. They looked like lines somebody had drawn onto the man's forehead with a black Sharpie, which was all the weirder considering Arthur was blonde. Was this what the English considered vogue?

The Englishman opened his mouth, and then he closed it. His gaze slid side to side, between Antonio and Carlos and the rest of the group. "Sorry, how is that—"

"Were you one of those plastic surgery experiments?" added Antonio, face already settling into a sympathetic frown. Carlos didn't have enough time to explain to Antonio that human experimentation seldom happened outside of movies anymore and that, even if they did, Arthur the rich white British society boy was probably the last person in the world to be used as a test subject.

"I was born like this!" Pink splotches began appearing over Arthur's cheeks. "And I'm proud of them, goddamnit!"

He had to bite down hard on his lip in order to keep himself from snickering at the other's enraged expression, which was only enhanced by those demented eyebrows. Antonio, for his part, only looked a little bewildered and confused. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more, but the Englishman gave off the impression that he was rapidly nearing the end of his rope; Carlos was also becoming aware of the looks of discomfort and irritation slinking onto the faces of the other students, so he quickly stepped in. "Maybe we should just get on with the rest of the tour, Arthur."

Arthur coughed, nodding. He straightened his tie with a stiff hand. "Yes. Very good. Ahem, to the right you'll see the administration offices..."

Carlos couldn't help noticing that as the tour group continued walking through the campus, the others kept a narrow, but distinct, margin away from the two of them. Fucking great, they'd managed to successfully ostracize themselves from polite society again.

* * *

The tour wasn't going well. They'd walked a distance of perhaps 30 meters—35 if Carlos was feeling generous, but he wasn't—in just as many minutes. He had a real need to use the restroom, and the fact that they were currently standing beside a lovely fountain listening to Arthur rhapsodize about how many gallons of water circulated through this thing every day was _not helping at all_. Antonio was on his phone, oblivious to the world, trying to chat with some girl on Tinder who was way out of his league. Carlos opened his mouth to suggest maybe _getting the fuck out of here_ , but by some crazy-ass European intuition or shit his cousin looked up from his phone and stared him in the eyes, right as he was about to speak. "I know you're thinking what I'm thinking, primo. We need to have something to eat."

"Uh, no, I was gonna say—uh, now that you say it, fuck. Why not."

He took Carlos' arm and strode away from the tour towards a conveniently-located ice-cream fundraiser booth, manned by a young woman wearing a t-shirt that marked her as a science department student. Antonio bought two cones—mint for himself, and chocolate, Carlos' favourite—from the woman for $3.50 apiece. A bit expensive, but hey, they were supporting neurodegenerative disease research, or something, so it was a noble sacrifice, wasn't it? He wondered whether Toni would have any money left to spare after this.

"Some damn good ice cream," Carlos declared after a few licks.

The girl, who had tousled brown hair that went down her shoulders and green eyes, laughed. "Thanks!" she said. "Martini's—you know, the restaurant down the street that way?—kindly donated some of their gelato to us. So a hundred percent of this goes towards funding our research." A flower sat above her ear, red and enticing, like a woman's billowing dress. Boyfriend? All the nice girls already had boyfriends. At this point, Carlos figured he'd count himself lucky if he managed to land one of Toni's crazy exes.

"Hang on a second," she said, narrowing her eyes at Antonio. "You look familiar for some reason? Is it... Toni?"

"Eh?? ...Wait, Erzsi?"

"Of course! I should've known—I hardly recognized you without the ponytail." Without warning, her face broke into a huge grin, a smile so dazzling Carlos almost took a step back. "Hey, it's been so long! Who would've thought we'd end up meeting each other again here? I didn't know you were going to uni. After Manon and you, ah, broke it off, you just disappeared off the face of the earth. Where've you been??"

Carlos, feeling rather stranded by himself in this conversation, did recognize the name _Manon_. He looked at Antonio for his reaction, but whatever traumatic memories must have been churned to the surface by the mention of her name, Antonio's beaming face betrayed none of them. "Haha, I went back to Europe again for a while, is all. Has been long time, Erzsi! I didn't recognize you either, with the, the long hair, and the makeup and the nice clothes and—everything."

She laughed again, swatting Antonio's arm like she was embarrassed. "Aw c'mon, don't bring up my tomboy phase in front of cute guys, te fasz." She winked at Carlos, who smiled back lazily. "Time for a proper introduction, don't you think? So who's this? New boyfriend?"

"No, hah, no, I'm his—he's my—cousin. Baby cousin. Carlos. He come from Cuba in high school, he got a scholarship for this school last year. Cute right!?"

A look drifted onto Erzsi's face that passed over the expressions of most people when they heard Carlos was on a scholarship: surprise and, as always, disbelief. "Holy! You're a smart one, aren't you? Who woulda thought you and Toni could ever be related, haha."

Carlos snorted. "Lemme tell you, when I saw this kid for the first time my first words were _'don't tell me this stupid motherfucker is part of my family.'_ —Biological glitch, I'm thinkin'." With a smirk, he leaned back on his heels, sticking his hands into the pockets of his shorts and ignoring Antonio's indignant _¿¡_ _qué!?_ Shit-talking his cousin appeared to be a common interest that transcended all social barriers, be it gender, ethnicity, or background.

"You're such a kiscica," Erzsi gushed, her eyes crinkling into smudged lines and thick, dark lashes. "Sorry you got stuck with somebody like Toni!" Carlos didn't know what _kiscica_ meant, but the way she'd said it, he was feeling pretty good about himself.

"So so so it's a nice fundraiser you got, isn't it," Antonio said—eager, no doubt, to divert the stream of conversation to something other than himself—and here Carlos thought his cousin could never get enough of being at the center of every discussion. "The Martinis must be generous."

"Oh yeah, no, Manon helped us on that front. Manon van Dijk, my best friend," she clarified for Carlos' sake. "She's a business whiz, her and those two brothers of hers; I don't know _how_  she convinced Martini's to donate all this ice cream—and wouldn't you know, she and Toni go way back—speak of the devil! There she is!" Carlos turned in the direction of Erzsi's frantic wave, sighting a tall blonde couple strutting down the sidewalk. The man had his hands in his pockets and looked like his face had been carved out of a cliff face. The woman's head sported neat, peppy curls, secured by an orange headband, and was supported by an equally fashionable body. She waved back.

 _This_ was the demon known as Manon? Why did she look more like a lawyer than a lunatic? The way Antonio had described her, Carlos would not have been surprised in the slightest had she walked in holding a bloody stiletto and with the entrails of unlucky Spanish boys draped over her neck. Christ.

The equally well-kept, equally attractive man beside her looked like a depressed architect. Carlos supposed this had to be Manon's Brother, a mystical figure whom Antonio had only mentioned a handful of times.

As the two of them approached the ice cream stand, Carlos took a _tiny_  step back. Like, microscopic. He wasn't intimidated, really. Just erring on the side of caution. Since one of them was allegedly insane, and the other was her brother, it was definitely the smart choice to stay wary around both of them!

He turned to Antonio, curious as to his reaction towards his long estranged ex, and was shocked to find his cousin had vanished. "Toni—"

Erzsi gave him a half-grin, half-grimace, and rolled her eyes—or perhaps he had imagined it—as she pointed down at the ice cream stand.

"Don't tell me he's—?!"

She delivered a vicious kick to something behind the booth, and Carlos heard a muffled Spanish expletive.

"I'm... sorry." He tried to keep a straight face, but Erzsi was also holding back a bewildered laugh, so he figured it was okay to smile. "To be fair, I'd do the same thing if I saw one of my exes."

"Hallo, Erzsi! Hot day today, huh? Good for business!" Manon the Antichrist and her brother were upon them, and Carlos was surprised again by how normal she sounded. "Hendrik and I were just stopping by to support the cause. We'll take, hm, one strawberry and one praline. Alright, Hennie?" she elbowed him in the side. "Give the woman her seven bucks!" Hendrik looked as if he were undergoing physical pain as he reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet, handing over the money with greatest reluctance.

"Thank _you_ ," Erzsi said as the coins dropped into her outstretched palm. "Oh, and I forgot to tell you! Meet Carlos," she gestured to him with a nod of the head while her hands scooped out lumps of gelato. "He is an utter  _delight_. And turns out he's Antonio's cousin from Cuba. It's a small world, right?"

Silence. Manon and Hendrik turned to stare at him, and Carlos felt a piece of his soul melt away. Maybe Antonio had been right to hide after all.


	4. CUATRO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos and Antonio give each other relationship(???) advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep changing the relationship tags around on this thing because i'm not sure how exactly i want the plot to unfold—in an ideal world i want EVERYONE to screw each other, but that's not feasible, apparently.  
> and i know this chapter is short but... come on. YOU try writing 1000 words in antonio's voice.

ANTONIO

Antonio counted to ten after Erzsébet said, "They've left, Toni." Then he surfaced from his hiding spot behind Erzsi's (incredibly tanned) legs. Manon and Hendrik were indeed nowhere in sight, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Ah! The sweet air of freedom! He was deathly afraid of Manon. Her brother threw harder punches, but there was nobody out there in the world who quite matched Manon's talent for humiliating him.

As he bent over to stretch out his cramped legs, Erzsébet leaned down and slapped him twice in the face. He took a few steps backwards out of surprise alone. "Why! Why!! What's that for?"

She looked at him without blinking. "You're an immature shit." It sounded quite serious, damning even, in her Hungarian accent. "Still avoiding her after all this time? How old are you again?"

"Errrrzsi." He double-rolled, triple-rolled, and quadruple-rolled the R for half a minute. It was his favourite trick for distracting people from a sticky subject because they either thought he was cute or he had some problems. When that didn't work, and Erzsébet kept prattling about how she was _"disappointed in you, Toni,"_ and how it was such a shame that he had been _"a great guy in high school, what happened? I really thought you and Manon would go places,"_ and finally _"all guys are like you, cowards cowards cowards, do you think you can hide behind an ice cream cart every time you see her coming? If I had a boyfriend like you I'd blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"_ , he looked over at Carlos and waited for him to rescue him. But Carlos was just standing there like an idiot, a few paces away and on his phone, like he had nothing to do with this conversation.

Traitor! Goddamn traitor! He was letting Antonio down again, like he always was, because Carlos never pulled his weight in their relationship and clearly cared about Antonio far less than Antonio cared about him. Otherwise why was he not saving him from this awkward conversation right now. He was going to remember this incident forever, oh yes he was. Antonio was a forgiving man, but he never forgot.

When he really felt like Erzsi was never going to stop, Antonio pretended to be surprised, fumbled his phone out of his pocket and pretended to be even more surprised when he looked at the screen. "Lo siento, Erz, I gotta take this! _Oh my god, is that really you Joaquim!_ I can't believe I'm hearing your voice again. I love you too. When are you—what, you saw _Sofia Vergara?_ Joaquim you are lying to me. Oh my god, you're DATING SOFIA VERGARA?" He strolled away, dragging Carlos by the arm.

After another minute of making shit up, when they had finally escaped out of Erzsi's field of vision, he snapped the phone shut. His ice cream was utterly melting over his other hand. He resisted the urge to wipe it on his cousin's shirt.

"That was Joaquim?" Carlos had actually fallen for it, the dumbass. "I didn't know you two had made up."

"No, estupido."

His brother Joaquim had a job in Los Angeles driving cars for rich people. Maybe he really had met Sofia Vergara; Antonio wouldn't know. Maybe he was dead.

"A'right." Carlos sounded unfazed. "But who's Sofia Vergara?"

 _God give me strength._  Toni closed his eyes briefly. And Erzsi thought _Carlos_  was the smarter one of the two of them?!

He led them towards a quiet area in the corner of the park, under the shade of some trees, and fell back into the grass and stared up, wide-eyed, at the bits of sun pushing between the tree leaves. Antonio made up his mind not to wonder about Joaquim or Sofia Vergara anymore. He was thinking maybe it was time to go check out his dorm, say hello to his roommate. After all, class had started yesterday and all of his and Carlos' stuff was still in the trunk of his car—

"What's the deal with Manon? You had me thinkin' she was some fucking ax murderer."

"Shut up, Carlos, you talked with her ten minutes, maybe eleven. How do you know she's _not_ a fucking ax murderer." The questions were never-ending today. It was so like Carlos to be nosy over everything, even when _none of it was his business_.

His cousin, after a pause: "Erzsi's right, Antonio. You don't got any reason to avoid Manon like that. She's a nice girl."

Antonio considered this testimony. Yeah, she looked real sweet, he remembered the first time he'd seen her in tenth grade with her carefully coiffed blonde hair and knee-high socks that matched whatever outfit she was wearing, Oxfords black and so shiny they were almost painful to look at. All that felt like memories from a century or long ago. From the first day, the first glance, he had thought, _she is the one for me_. Well, that just went to show how fucking untrustworthy first impressions were!

"Carlos, _stop_  it. I have been a great cousin, all my life, every day, I give you banana bread, I support you and I love you no matter what, now you have one conversation with Manon and her brother and you take their side! Why do you care about them?"

"Tío... chill. I ain't taking no sides. I just think you should MAN UP and stop running away from her."

"When was the last time you had a girlfriend? Right, NEVER. So don't talk to me."

"Fuck you, man. I was just tryna help. Fuck you."

He grinned and sat up. "Ah Carlitos, you know I didn't mean that. You can get any girl if you try—I'll set you up with someone. But stop wearing the Hawaiian shirts, maybe."

"I'm getting the fuck away from you."


End file.
